


Take Me Out to the Ball Game

by eadreytheiptscray



Category: Elementary (TV)
Genre: Family Bonding, Gen, Season/Series 06, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-06
Updated: 2019-07-06
Packaged: 2020-06-22 07:39:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19662817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eadreytheiptscray/pseuds/eadreytheiptscray
Summary: What's a found family without heartfelt bonding moments? Our 11th Precinct fam spends a weekend together. Shenanigans include baseball team trash-talking, outrageously slow take-out delivery, and cold case-solving.———Set during a lull in Joan's and Sherlock's casework, sometime during season 6. (Minor, if any, spoilers ahead.)





	Take Me Out to the Ball Game

**Author's Note:**

  * For [greetingsanddefiance](https://archiveofourown.org/users/greetingsanddefiance/gifts).



> Let's talk baseball real quick. 
> 
> It's canon that Joan and Tommy (as of season 7's "From Russia With Drugs"—thank goodness I only started this fic a few weeks ago!) are Mets fans. 
> 
> Most families are divided houses over sports teams, so why shouldn't our favorite found family be, too? In this fic, Paige and Marcus are Yankees fans to balance out Tommy and Joan.

"What do you mean, he's never been to a baseball game?"

"We're from London, Captain," Kitty sighed as she bounced Archie on her knee. After an eight-hour flight, five time zone crossings, and a couple of taxi rides, the young boy was just a few blinks away from sleep. Kitty was, too, but one of them had to carry the other up the stairs once they'd return to the brownstone after dinner at the Gregsons'. "Baseball is America's pastime, not Britain's."

"Be that as it may, you're in New York again. It's time Archie experienced one for himself. The next Mets game I could take us to is…" Tommy scrolled through his phone. "Washington, next Sunday. Why don't we all go then?"

"I'd love to," Kitty said, "but we're flying back that night."

"How about tomorrow?" Marcus chimed in, barely hiding his mischievous grin. "We're playing Baltimore. I know Chantal wouldn't mind giving up her ticket. And Archie's so young he doesn't need one."

Joan clicked her tongue. "Archie's first game should be with an actually talented team, right, Captain?"

"Now, Kitty," Paige piped up before her husband could side with Joan. "Wouldn't you like to rest on Saturday while the boys spend some quality time with Archie?" She winked at Marcus across the table.

Kitty glanced around the dinner table. To her left, Paige was giving her a compassionate look but sharing a smirk with Marcus, a fellow Yankees fan. Tommy and Joan were whispering conspiratorially to each other, something about "World Series rings" and "a team that's resting on its laurels."

As he was sitting in between a die-hard Mets fan and an equally passionate Yankees fan, Sherlock was hunched over his phone trying to ignore the baseball banter altogether.

Kitty couldn't help but smile knowing she would upset half the table. "That sounds like a great idea."

"Yes!" Marcus pumped his fist, and Paige sat back looking pleased with herself. Tommy and Joan groaned, but their smiles betrayed their feigned disgust.

"Next time," Tommy muttered to Joan. "Then it's settled," he addressed the rest of the table. "Marcus and I will take Archie to the ball game tomorrow."

"Sherlock," Joan turned to her partner. "Would you—?"

"Nope." He didn't look up from whatever text he was sending. "I'm tackling cold cases tomorrow. Unless New York's criminals send an interesting case our way." He glanced to Tommy and raised his eyebrow, but the captain shook his head. "Cold cases it is."

"So what do you plan to do on your restful Saturday?" Paige asked Kitty.

"Honestly," Kitty said as she stifled a yawn, "I want to take it easy. Traveling is exhausting—for both of us, it looks like." She grinned down at Archie, snoozing away peacefully in her arms. "I might just stick around the brownstone, if you don't mind."

And she did. Slept in until 10 a.m., even. But her plan to spend a quiet Saturday alone shattered when she'd woken up to Tommy, Paige, and Marcus chatting away downstairs. By the time she'd put on something decent and tiptoed to the main floor, a knock at the door signaled the arrival of even more guests.

"Morning, Kitty," Sherlock muttered as he brushed past her. "And good morning, Mrs. Hudson!"

By some miracle, Kitty slipped past her friends congregating in the foyer and downstairs to the relative seclusion of the kitchen.

"When I said 'take it easy,'" Kitty muttered to Joan, who was pouring tea, coffee, and ice water into whatever clean mugs she could find, "this isn't exactly what I had in mind."

"Don't worry. Marcus and the captain are leaving with Archie in a minute. Tommy insisted Paige join us, so I thought it would be fun to have a spa day."

"What, here?" Kitty shoved her hands into her sweatshirt pockets. "How?"

"I hear Mrs. Hudson gives the local manicurists a run for their money. And she's got excellent taste in wine." Joan winked.

A glass of wine sounded great—and just what the doctor ordered.

—————

Like Joan said, the fervor died down once Marcus and Tommy left the brownstone with an excited Archie in tow. They promised they'd head back as soon as the game was over—"so sometime this evening," the captain had chuckled.

Kitty didn't like letting Archie out of her sight, but she felt better knowing he was with Marcus and Tommy. Two men she trusted (on more than one occasion) with her life. She felt even better when Mrs. Hudson slipped a full glass of red in her hands.

When she'd finally left the stoop to go back inside, Kitty found the fun had moved to the kitchen, where Mrs. Hudson was setting out tiny bottles of nail polish. Several shades of red, silver, gold, and blue were spread out on the table, with who knows how many more colors in the opaque plastic bin Mrs. Hudson had brought with her.

Joan and Paige, meanwhile, were peering over a menu for what looked like a Thai take-out restaurant. The corners were crinkled and the paper on the creases was flaking away, so clearly it got a lot of use. (From Joan, probably. Kitty figured Sherlock had memorized the menu ages ago, shelving it away somewhere in his mental attic.)

It wasn't long before the two women had decided what they wanted to eat, so Joan passed the menu to Mrs. Hudson. Kitty got it last, but it didn't take her long to make up her mind. Fortunately, Joan took care of placing the orders, even requesting what Kitty assumed was Sherlock's go-to dish.

Fifteen minutes passed, then twenty. Half an hour after Joan had hung up the phone, she dialed the restaurant again. She sucked in a breath after hearing the delivery wait time.

"An hour?" Kitty repeated. Her stomach started complaining, too. Loudly. The wine hadn't been filling, and her coffee wasn't helping, either.

"Big catering order, apparently." Joan shrugged and slumped into the chair at the head of the table.

"I've got just the thing to take our minds off the wait," Mrs. Hudson said. She gestured to the two dozen nail polish bottles laid out in a single-file row. "Ladies, manicures are on me."

Instinctively, Kitty looked to her stubby unpainted nails. The last time she'd had them painted was… six years ago? She couldn't remember. Once she'd become Sherlock's apprentice and did nothing but study his methods, painting her own nails had become one of the many distractions she'd cut out of her routine.

Mrs. Hudson reached for Paige's hands first, considering she was sitting closest to her. At the same time, Paige reached for a bottle of bright red polish. Mrs. Hudson gently tapped her hand.

"Let me," Mrs. Hudson chided.

"I'm perfectly capable—"

"I know." She gave Paige's hands a loving squeeze. "My treat. It's a spa day, after all."

Finally, Paige gave in, letting Mrs. Hudson file her long nails smooth. It was oddly relaxing to watch someone get her nails painted, Kitty mused as she watched from her perch against the kitchen counter.

Five minutes later, Mrs. Hudson gestured to her. "Your turn."

"Oh, no, I'm alright," Kitty said, instinctively curling her fingers around her now-empty coffee mug. She hoped Mrs. Hudson hadn't noticed how cracked and chipped her nails were.

Mrs. Hudson shook her head, not taking her eyes off Kitty. "You and Paige," she sighed good-naturedly. "Please let me dote on you, just this once."

All eyes in the room were on her—including Sherlock's, who'd popped up from the basement just a few seconds prior.

"Alright, fine." Kitty set her mug on the counter and slipped into the chair opposite Mrs. Hudson. "But something neutral, please."

There was that stare again. Kitty fought the urge to glance away, but she couldn't help flinching when Mrs. Hudson gently tugged her hands forward.

"If you insist. But cobalt blue would be such a good color for you."

"Neutral."

Mrs. Hudson didn't blink. "How about a compromise: An eggshell on all but your ring fingers. Pick out a different color for your accent nails."

In the end, the manicurist got her way, and Kitty ended up choosing cobalt blue. It _was_ a good color.

—————

The hour was up, but their food still hadn't arrived. Joan did her best with the slim pickings in the fridge—a few items by the leaky jar full of eyeballs got tossed out—but the sliced bananas and shredded lettuce usually reserved for Clyde wouldn't tide them over long.

Fortunately, Sherlock came to the rescue with his own distraction: a box full of cold cases he still hadn't managed to solve. He plopped the box by Paige, who rifled through the files before they'd settled.

"'Triple homicide, 1984,'" she read from the Post-It note attached to one of the files.

"Slide that one over, would you?" Joan asked. "That was one of the first cases I tried to solve on my own. It might help having fresh eyes." She smirked. "Unlike the ones I just threw away."

"All yours." Paige tossed the file across the table and pulled another out of the box. "'Serial killer, 1872.'"

"Sounds interesting," Mrs. Hudson mused, admiring her blood-red nails under the dining room light. "I'll take a crack at it."

"'Poisoning and arson, 1907.'"

"Why not?" Kitty reached for the file, which Paige happily handed over. She leafed through the yellowing documents, only half-unsure where to start.

"What case did you take?" Mrs. Hudson asked Paige.

"This one says 'Kidnapping of a Greek interpreter, 1893.'" Paige lightly flipped through the crinkled documents, yellowed with age and nearly transparent under the LED light. She scanned the documents meticulously, letting out a curious hum every now and again.

"Well?"

Kitty jumped; how long had Sherlock been standing in the doorway? But his focus was on Paige, or rather the evidence in her hands.

"It's an interesting case," she mused. "This Melas fellow says an associate led him to a coach that had its windows taped up, and he was taken to a summer home upstate to translate some business matter. But they let him go—did they not think Melas would go to the police?"

"Apparently not. His kidnappers ended up fleeing the country and were never seen again."

Paige looked even more curious. Kitty thought she recognized the analytical spark in the woman's eye. Knowing Paige's law enforcement background and her love of a good mystery, Kitty figured Sherlock would have another budding protege on his hands.

Her hunch was right when, after she, Joan, and Mrs. Hudson had abandoned their cold cases for hot Thai food, Sherlock and Paige were still pouring over the case file.

—————

True to his word, Tommy came back with Marcus and Archie mid-afternoon. Their cheeks were pink from the wind and sun, but all Kitty focused on was the huge grin on her son's face.

"Did you three have fun at the baseball game?" She asked as she scooped Archie up.

"I'd say so," Marcus chuckled over Archie's babbling.

"Mum, mum! I love Unca' Marcus and Unca' Tommy. I got a hot dog an' cotton candy an' ice cream—"

"Slow down," Kitty chuckled, wiping off the chili stains around her son's mouth and taking a seat on the staircase. "What do you say to Marcus and the captain?"

"Thank you!" Archie shouted, clapping his hands together.

"Oh, almost forgot this." Tommy fished a baseball out of his pocket. "Not only did your son see the home team win"—he cast a pointed look at Marcus, who clapped him on the back—"but he also caught a fly ball in the seventh inning."

Archie's eyes sparkled with delight, and he clutched the baseball like a beloved stuffed animal. Kitty wrapped him in a bear hug, mouthing a _thank you_ at her two friends.

A shriek from downstairs sent them racing. When the four of them stumbled into the kitchen, however, their panic melted at the gleeful look on Paige's face.

"I solved it!" Paige's smile lit up the room, and her golden curls bounced as she turned to accept high-fives and hugs from her friends.

Even Sherlock was grinning. "You've got the makings of a detective yet."

"We might even call you for help on some cases," Joan added. Kitty saw the wink she shared with Tommy from across the kitchen.

"So what happened?" Tommy asked as he slid into the empty chair at his wife's side.

"This is a cold case from 1893," Paige explained as she fanned out the antique police notes on the table. "Melas, an interpreter, was kidnapped and forced to translate between his kidnappers and another victim, Kratides. Well, Melas realized his kidnappers didn't speak a word of Greek, so he was able to get some information out of Kratides. Apparently, he was being coerced into signing over his property. Unfortunately, Kratides was killed after Melas took the matter to the police."

"And you figured out who the kidnappers were?"

"Better. I figured out where they went _and_ who killed them."

"All on her own, I might add," Sherlock piped up from the other side of the kitchen, where he was chowing down on his now-cold pad Thai.

"Well, I had help—"

"Nonsense. A nudge in the right direction."

Kitty sat back contently as she listened to her friends recounting the day's events, all while bouncing a sleepy Archie on her hip. She'd imagined spending her Saturday in bed, curled up with a good book or flipping mindlessly through cable TV. But as she looked around at her friends— _my family_ , she thought—she couldn't imagine herself spending a Saturday any other way.


End file.
